I do think it’s relevant. Here are some examples of it, which I put explicitly in a footnote to the article:
"“They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed.” (City of God, XII:10)
Says Origen: “After these statements, Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit upon the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that, while concealing his wish, intimates his agreement with those who hold that the world is uncreated. For, maintaining that there have been, from all eternity, many conflagrations and many deluges, and that the flood which lately took place in the time of Deucalion is comparatively modern, he clearly demonstrates to those who are able to understand him, that, in his opinion, the world was uncreated. But let this assailant of the Christian faith tell us by what arguments he was compelled to accept [this].” (Contra Celsum, I:XIX)"
Let’s remember that Augustine also thought that there were no people on the otherside of the globe. Why do you depart from him on that point?
He also thought that the belief there was no animal death before the fall was so ridiculous that any one who believed it was clear evidence of the Fall’s impact on our intellect.
I reference it in the article. Do you not have the book? It’s in the preface, and a quote hardly matters. You don’t write a book if what you think can be reduced to a quote, but since you asked:
“In the traditional interpretation of Adam and Eve, they are the original human pair, miraculously created de novo by God a few thousand years before Christ.”
This is in the preface and in the specific context of him explaining why he chose the terms “traditional” versus “revisionist” for the book and what he means by them.
Evidence doesn’t change, but interpretations of it do. This is not only true of science it is of paramount importance to scientific progress. It’s called a “paradigm shift” and has happened quite often in the history of science. The Copernican Revolution, Newtonian mechanics, and relativity theory are all examples of paradigm shifts where the evidence was radically reinterpreted. Craig himself rejects certain elements of relativity theory because he does not like the philosophical implications.
You’re right. I think I misinterpreted that to identify with YEC when he was only talking about Adam and Eve. But I do think Craig has changed his mind on this issue, whether he admits it or not. He knows Ross has mishandled the ancient literature and that he got suckered by the guy who brought it up in his Defenders class using material from Ross. But hey, you can ask him yourself and let me know.
That would depend on what “the original human pair” means. Given that Augustine was a YEC, at least according to the quotes @BenKissling provided, the existence of evolved human populations outside the Garden is precluded, and “original human pair” must refer to biological humans, not just “textual humans”.
That is literally facebook level argumentation. I’ve had this argument a billion times on facebook. You know the response without asking. Augustine is not the authority on what is truth. The Bible is. We are dealing here with a specific, false claim about what Augustine believed. Augustine did not have a “nonliteral” interpretation of Genesis. He had, at least at some point in his career (he wrote four separate commentaries on Genesis and changed his view on this and many other issues), a nonliteral view of the days in Genesis 1. We know though that his view of the genealogies was not only historical, but that he defended this with confidence against pagans who argued the earth was older than that.
I do not think that these shifts are of equivalent character to the consilience of the science in reflecting an old earth. To upend that would undo nearly all the general knowledge of nature acquired to date and vacate the entire life work of untold researchers, largely leaving only basic chemistry somewhat intact.
The following list is off the top of my head and is far from complete, and I offer it not as a Gish gallop, but to survey how pervasive and interlocking the scientific consilience is. I’m aware that YEC has responses to all of these, but none of them are compelling. I do not see how any one “paradigm shift” would alter the overall picture. There is no single point of inflection here. Furthermore, as more data has become available, the new detail has confirmed rather that challenged the broad consensus around the age of the earth.
Cosmology
Cosmic microwave background
Red shift
General relativity integration with big bang cosmology
Astronomy
Interacting galaxies
Cosmic jets
Stellar nurseries
Cratering
Geology - Earth Science
Oil / gas formation
Chalk / limestone / Cave formation
Island chains - Hawaii / Galapagos
Magnetic reversals along tectonic fissures
Multiple glaciations - erratic boulder
Discontinuities (such as Hutton’s Siccor Point)
Igneous entrainments over sedimentary rock
Various radiometric dating techniques
Varves
Ice cores
Independent records of Synchronous Solar Energetic Particle events
K-T boundary
Fossil Record
General progression of life - ie flowering plants
Segregation of record - no modern mammals with dinosaurs, trilobites
Detailed record of microfossils - foraminifera, diatoms
Accumulated fossil record for humans
Biology
Genetic phylogeny
Human chromosome 2 Fusion
Endogenous viral elements
Real time evolution - ie coronavirus
Dendrochronology
History and Archeology
Dynastic Egypt
Prehistoric civilization - ie. Göbekli Tepe
Not really. Paradigm shifts do not occur because people retrospectively revise their interpretations of evidence; they occur when people falsify hypotheses by rigorously testing them, creating new knowledge.
Of course, creationists have to justify their scientific inaction by pretending that it’s all retrospective.
@BenKissling , WLC specifically describes his position as “traditionalist”, and his book as a push back on “revisionists.” So even if YEC is a traditional reading, he has argued in several contexts and through out the book that an ancient GAE is a traditional reading of Genesis.